Gay D.C. Council member David Catania has 10 co-sponsors for a same-sex marriage bill. (Blade file photo by Aram Vartian)

By LOU CHIBBARO JR, Washington Blade
Oct 6 2009, 10:02 AM  |     |     |  
UPDATED: Oct 6, 5:55 PM

Gay D.C. City Council member David Catania (I-At Large) and nine of his Council colleagues introduced Tuesday a long-awaited bill that would allow same-sex marriages to be performed in the nation's capital.

With about an equal number of supporters and opponents filling the Council chamber's seating to capacity — and many people left standing — Catania thanked his Council colleagues for helping the city fulfill "a more perfect understanding of human rights and equality."

Ten of the Council's 13 members have signed on as co-introducers of the bill, leading nearly all Council observers to say the bill is certain to clear the Council's second and final vote in December. Mayor Adrian Fenty has said he will sign the bill.

After receiving Fenty's signature, the bill goes to Congress for a required review of 30 legislative days. Capitol Hill observers, including Republican lawmakers who oppose same-sex marriage, have said the Democratic controlled Congress is expected to allow the bill to become law.

Barring an unexpected wrinkle in what is expected to be a smooth path for the bill, D.C. would join Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa and New Hampshire in allowing same-sex marriages to be performed. Maine's legislature also has approved a same-sex marriage bill, but opponents succeeded in bringing the measure before voters through a referendum set for next month.

"This legislation paves the way for the equal access to civil marriage in the District of Columbia by defining marriage as a legally recognized union of two people, regardless of gender," Catania said as he introduced the bill.

"The issue of marriage equality elicits very strong feelings and emotions," he said. "On the one hand, though, those such as myself believe marriage is a basic human right, which our civil and secular government is duty bound to extend to same-sex couples in the same manor that is made available to opposite-sex couples."

Gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), a long-time supporter of same-sex marriage, said he was proud to represent a ward that maintains a "live and let live attitude" toward minorities, different cultures and varying points of view.

"I am enormously proud, not only of the city, but also being able to vote in favor of what is essentially and totally a human rights issue," Graham said.

"And as an openly gay member of this Council who has gone his own length through so many stages, it's just an incredibly historical moment, an important moment for me to be associated with this bill and to promise you that I'm going to vote yes in every stage of its consideration."

Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), whose ward includes neighborhoods with large numbers of LGBT residents, called the legislation another in a series of LGBT rights bills the Council has passed during the last 20 years.

"Today is a historic day," he said. "Today is the culmination of all those efforts. So congratulations to Council member Catania, fellow colleagues and everybody in the room today who was a tremendous participant in making this happen."

Council Chair Vincent Gray (D-At Large) said he would refer the bill to the Council's Committee on Public Safety & Judiciary, which is headed by Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), a longtime LGBT rights supporter.

Mendelson has said he would hold hearings on the bill about two weeks after Catania introduced it. LGBT activists, led by a coalition of local groups advocating for marriage equality, are organizing a coordinated effort to line up witnesses to testify at the hearing.

Mendelson has been credited with pushing through the Council a separate bill he introduced earlier in the year that allows the city to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states and countries.

Same-sex marriage supporters viewed that measure as a trial run for the bill Catania introduced Tuesday. They noted that the earlier bill withstood an attempt by opponents to defeat it through a voter referendum and it cleared its congressional review without a serious challenge.

Most legal experts expect an attempt to overturn Catania's full same-sex marriage bill through a voter initiative to meet the same fate as the earlier, same-sex marriage recognition measure. The city's Board of Elections & Ethics ruled that the marriage recognition bill was exempt from a referendum proposed by opponents because such a referendum would violate the city's Human Rights Act.

A D.C. Superior Court judge upheld the election board's ruling, leading legal experts to predict a similar ruling will be handed down against a voter initiative that Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., a Maryland minister, filed last month in anticipation of Catania's marriage bill.

Jackson's proposed initiative calls for defining marriage in the District of Columbia as the exclusive union of one man and one woman.

Speaking to reporters outside the Council chambers Tuesday after Catania introduced the marriage bill, Jackson said he was hopeful that the election board and an appeals court would rule in favor of allowing his proposed initiative to take place.

"My reaction is that the people need to have a say in this matter," he said, when asked about the lopsided support for Catania's bill.

Jackson noted that when he and his supporters filed papers for a referendum to block the same-sex marriage recognition law, he faced a strict limit on the amount of time to file an appeal before the courts. This time, he noted, the law governing an initiative allows same-sex marriage opponents more time to build a legal case and to file court appeals if the election board turns down the initiative.

"We're going to leave no stone unturned," he said. "We're going to pursue looking to see the definition of marriage remain between a man and a woman."

Rev. Christine Wiley, a co-pastor at Covenant Baptist Church in Anacostia who stood a few feet away from Jackson, noted that a large number of the city's clergy support same-sex marriage rights and plan to testify in favor of Catania's bill.

"We do believe it's a human rights issue and we're very happy for what happened today, that the legislation was introduced," she said. "We're supporting it all the way."

In addition to Catania, Graham and Evans, the Council members who signed on Tuesday as co-introducers of the bill were Gray, Mendelson, Kwame Brown (D-At Large), Michael Brown (I-At Large), Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6).

The three Council members who did not join the majority as co-introducers were Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) and Marion Barry (D-Ward 8).

Barry, who was a strong gay rights supporter during his tenure as D.C. mayor in the 1980s and early 1990s, was absent from Tuesday's meeting. His chief of staff, Bernadette Tolson, said Barry, 73, was admitted to Howard University Hospital early that morning suffering from dehydration. Barry underwent kidney transplant surgery in February.

Barry emerged as the Council's sole opponent of same-sex marriage earlier this year, noting that he based his stance on religious grounds.

Alexander and Thomas voted for the same-sex marriage recognition bill earlier this year and have said they want to carefully review Catania's full same-sex marriage rights bill before making on final decision on whether they will support it when it comes up for a "first-reading" vote that's expected in December.

Activists familiar with wards 5 and 7 have said Thomas and Alexander are facing intense pressure from ministers and socially conservative constituents to vote against same-sex marriage.

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